High-quality ZnO thin films were grown by plasma-enhanced molecular-beam epitaxy on sapphire substrates. Three excitonic transitions associated with the valence bands A, B, and C were clearly revealed in the reflectance spectrum measured at 33K. This result indicates that the ZnO thin films have the wurtzite crystalline structure. The emission spectra were measured with backscattering geometry at room temperature. When the excitation exceeded a certain value, linewidth narrowing, nonlinear rise of emission intensity, and the shortening of the carrier lifetime were clearly observed and these demonstrate the onset of stimulated emission. Together with the ZnO thickness dependence, we conclude that the observation of a stimulated emission in a direction perpendicular to the film surface is predominantly due to scattering of the in-plane stimulated emission by slightly remaining surface undulations in the ZnO films.
Two kinds of self-assembled InAs quantum dots ͑QDs͒ grown on GaAs ͑001͒ substrates were studied. One is capped with GaAs layers and the other with GaNAs strain-compensating layers. Photoluminescence ͑PL͒ measurements on the two kinds of InAs QDs showed distinct dependence on the selection of the capping layers. The homogeneity and luminescence efficiency of the InAs QDs were much improved when the net strain was reduced with GaNAs layers. These results demonstrate the importance of net strain compensation for the improved optical quality of InAs QDs.
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